A/N: And here it is, the long-awaited break-up scene. I hope it lives up to everyone's expectations!
Section 16:
The scones really were quite good. So was the tea. And so were the little sandwiches and the biscuits and everything else laid out on the lavish tea table. And it was just because they were *good* that Harry stayed down in that room for so long. Avoiding his fiancée? Why no, of course not! He was just enjoying a leisurely tea. A *very* leisurely tea. For hours. Lots of hours. Far beyond tea time. Far beyond dinner time. All the way until bedtime, and a bit beyond.
Fortunately, Dumbledore seemed to have found something to tell his friends and fiancée to explain his absence since no one came after him. Harry was grateful for the respite. It meant that he had plenty of time to sit and think (and drink tea, of course; lots of tea) and come up with a plan for exactly how he would call off his engagement. He didn't come up with much. He'd never ended a relationship before, and hadn't the foggiest idea what he should do. He didn't want her to hate him, but he didn't want to leave her in any doubt that his mind was made up. It was quite a puzzle.
It didn't help, of course, that even as he tried to think of what to say to Lavender, his mind kept drifting back to Hermione. All he'd been able to find out about the Bankhead Institute was that it was in Switzerland. Apparently, that was all that most people knew. Bankhead wasn't just a school for healers, it was also one of the leading medical think-tanks in Europe. They kept their secrets closely guarded. Especially their precise location. But Harry didn't allow himself to be pessimistic. He'd find her. He'd find his Hermione and he'd tell her that he loved her, and he'd never let her go again. The thought of what it would be like when they were finally together was more than enough to occupy his mind for the rest of the evening, and by the time he finally headed back to Gryffindor tower, he'd given up on planning what he'd say to Lavender. He'd simply tell her that he needed to talk to her and from there he'd… well… wing it. It couldn't be that much harder than defeating the Dark Lord… could it?
In spite of his brave resolution, Harry couldn't help but feel a rush of relief when he stepped into the tower and saw that the common room was quiet and still, and that the only figure in the low-burning firelight was Lavender, fast asleep, curled up in a squashy armchair. The conversation could wait until morning. His dreams had been rather enlightening lately; perhaps they'd show him what he should say by then.
Lavender slept like a log. Honestly, it was almost cute the way *nothing* external could wake her up once she fell asleep. Harry, therefore, had no fear of waking her when he lifted her into his arms and carried her up the stairs to the room they were supposed to share. Laying her down on one side of the bed, he pulled off her slippers, turned down the sheets, and tucked her underneath the blankets. He sat on the side of the bed and just watched her for a few, long moments. She was quite beautiful when she slept, and Harry had an odd desire to imprint the memory firmly in his mind, since it would be the last time he would see it. Tomorrow he would end his engagement with Lavender, and he would never watch her sleep again.
Changing into his pajamas, Harry grabbed a blanket off of one of the extra beds and headed downstairs. He wouldn't share Lavender's bed anymore, but he didn't want to embarrass her by bunking in with the rest of the boys. There would be all sorts of questions in the morning if he stayed there, and he wasn't about to announce to the rest of the wedding guests that he was ending things with Lavender before he had had a chance to tell the bride, herself. No, he'd just crash on the couch for tonight. If anyone saw him, he could say that he hadn't been able to sleep and had come downstairs to read before accidentally nodding off on the couch. Besides, the photo album was downstairs, and he still hadn't had a chance to look through the last three years' worth of pictures.
Harry stretched out on the couch and pulled the blanket over his body, tugging the photo album in place beside him, and flipping ahead so that he was looking at the seventh year pictures. She wasn't in the back of the album which held the pictures for the past few months, and Harry let out a sigh of frustration. He never should have let it happen. He never should have let her separate herself from his life. But what was done was done, and there was nothing he could do to change it. All he could do was see to it that he never lost her again. He'd start on that in the morning, once he'd talked to Lavender. But until then, there were still the pictures from the beginning of the year. Flipping back, he found them and there she was: chatting, smiling, studying, sketching, and looking so lovely that Harry could have sworn his heart skipped a beat.
He found a gorgeous one of her curled up next to him on one of the common room sofas, nibbling a sugar quill while reading a positively enormous book that obviously had her enthralled. The subject of the photo was Harry, playing chess with Ron, but Hermione was all that Harry saw, watching her sucking gently on the sugar quill while looking up every minute or so, obviously in response to Colin's request for all of them to smile, to flash a quick grin at the camera.
Harry let out a soft sigh and tugged the photo album closer. Staring at her sweet face in the pictures, he could almost imagine Hermione was lying next to him, and he couldn't help but smile at the thought. Subconsciously, he reached out to trace her features with the tip of his finger. He loved wizarding photos; they were so lifelike! Blushing a bit, he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss against the picture.
"Goodnight, Hermione," he whispered sleepily, lifting his head slightly to pull off his glasses and place them to the side. His vision went blurry, but his eyes continued to focus on Hermione's picture while his fingers traced the photograph as his eyes slowly slid shut. He fell asleep quickly with a smile on his lips, and slept quite soundly.
There was no way he could have known that Lavender had woken a few minutes after he tucked her into bed. And since he didn't know that, there was no way he could have imagined that she came downstairs, looking for him, and saw him curl up with his photo album. It never occurred to him that she might have watched him say goodnight to Hermione's picture… and seen the look on his face when he said it. So naturally, the thought never crossed his mind that his fiancée went back upstairs after watching him and cried a bit before falling asleep.
The next thing Harry was aware of was the feel of Lavender's fingers combing through his hair. The gesture was warm and very familiar; it was a long-standing habit of hers and one that Harry had always rather liked; but this morning it gave him nothing so much as a cold sense of dread. He could tell that they were alone in the common room, and knew that this was the perfect moment to have their talk. The only problem was, he still had no idea what he wanted to say. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and gave her a weak smile.
"Morning, Lav," he whispered before frowning slightly. His vision was more than a bit blurred without his glasses, but even he could see that it was still quite dark in the common room. The light coming from the windows was the gray-blue of just before dawn: much earlier than Lavender usually got up. "What time is it?" he couldn't help but ask as he sat up and stretched.
"Early," she answered vaguely, handing him his glasses. "I thought we could talk before everyone else got up."
"Al-alright," he stammered uncertainly. "Um… what did you want to talk about?"
"Did you know that both my parents were Ravenclaws when they were at Hogwarts?" Lavender asked. She was smiling brightly at him and her voice was casual, as if she was merely making chitchat, but there was a brittle tension to the smile and the voice that confused him.
"No, I… ah… I didn't know that," Harry replied after a lengthy pause where he tried to figure out where this conversation was going.
"I was so nervous when the Sorting Ceremony started our first year. I knew the professors would expect me to be sorted into Ravenclaw, just like my parents, but I knew that I didn't stand a chance. I'm worlds away from being smart enough for that."
"Don't say that, you're plenty smart!" Harry interjected. He still didn't know where she was headed with this, but he wasn't going to allow Lavender to insult herself in front of him. "You get top marks in Divination."
"So do you, Harry, and you make up your predictions," Lavender corrected him with a warmer smile. "I… I know I'm not smart, like Hermione, and I… I'm fine with that, really I am. It was just strange during the Sorting Ceremony because I had no idea where I would end up. Even though I'm a pureblood, I'm not what you'd call ambitious. And I'm loyal, I guess, but I'm not much of a hard worker. Gryffindor, above all, seemed out of my league. So many heroes have come from Gryffindor. Like you, love."
Harry opened his mouth to interject. He wasn't sure what he'd say; maybe it would be something about how she had been heroic to even care about him in the first place, when loving him seemed to be a death warrant. Or maybe he'd say something about how involved she'd been in D.A. and how brave she had been. But Lavender cut him off with a gesture, letting him know that she wasn't finished having her say, and Harry subsided into silence.
"There are times when I'd wonder if I was sorted into the wrong house," she confessed. "You and Ron and Hermione would perform all these daring adventures every year, and even Neville showed courage standing up to you first year and then going with you to the Department of Mysteries. Luna's a Ravenclaw and she's been involved in more dangerous adventures than I have. But I think my time has finally come to be brave, Harry. This is my moment to show that I really am a Gryffindor."
"Lav, what is it? What's wrong?"
"I'm calling off our engagement, Harry."
For a moment, he just sat there in silence, looking absolutely shocked. "You're… what?" he asked dazedly.
"I'm calling off our engagement. I don't want to marry you. Well no," she corrected herself. "That's not quite true. I do want to marry you, Harry. But I don't want you to marry me."
"That doesn't make any sense," he whispered, as if he was afraid that speaking out loud would make the world turn upside-down physically, instead of just in his head.
"Marriage is a promise," Lavender explained. "At a wedding, you stand up before the people that you love and trust most in the world and promise that you'll spend the rest of your life loving the person standing there with you, above all others. I don't want you to make that promise to me, Harry, because I know it would be a lie."
Harry gasped. "Lav," he stammered apologetically, "I never meant to-"
"You're in love with Hermione," Lavender continued as if Harry hadn't spoken. "We both know it, so it's time we both admitted it, to ourselves and to each other. She's the person that you want to love and cherish. She's who you want to grow old with and build a life and a family with, so the only person you should be making that promise to is her."
"I made a promise to *you*," Harry said, grabbing hold of her hand, "when I gave you this ring. I never wanted to break that promise. And I'm so sorry-"
"I'm not," Lavender interrupted with a sad smile. "I'm not sorry at all. I'll never be sorry for what we had or the fact that we had it together. But it wasn't love. You could never give me your heart because it belongs to Hermione and always will."
"How…" Harry's voice was low and cautious, "how did you know?"
"I… I'm not smart," Lavender answered, looking more serious than Harry had ever seen her, her voice shaking a bit with the force of the conviction behind it. "And I probably never will be, but I know that I love you, Harry, with everything that I have. I knew that you never looked at me quite the same way that I looked at you, but I thought that that was natural. I knew you weren't used to expressing your emotions, and I thought that you felt as much as I did, even if you didn't show it. But I saw that look of love on your face, and it wasn't when you were looking at me. It was when you were looking at a picture of Hermione."
"I'm so sorry. I never meant to-"
"It's okay, Harry. Really it is. You didn't do anything wrong. Of course," she said, and at this point her voice deliberately grew breezy and bright again, "you didn't do anything particularly right either. Honestly Harry, letting the girl leave the country? I thought you seekers were supposed to be faster on the draw than that! And now you'll have to chase her half way across the Continent, and trains to Switzerland are positively dreadful this time of year. And packing will be a wretched ordeal. Which color robes adequately say 'I was a fool to let you go and I'll do anything to get you back?' And whatever color you decide on, you might want to have a few spare sets in the same shade, in case she chooses at first to lock the door against you and throw objects at you from an upstairs window, which Merlin knows you deserve. But still, bloodstains are disastrously difficult to get out of good material and you'd do well to be prepared-"
Harry was laughing out loud by this point, and Lavender was smiling, well pleased with herself. "I do love you, Lavender," Harry said with a grin.
"Of course you do," she replied. Her tone was flippant but her smile was surprisingly understanding. "I'm very loveable."
"I'll miss you, Lav. We had something good."
"We had something *great*, Harry, truly. We were able to make each other happy in a time when we both really needed some happiness, and I'll never regret that." She ran her fingers gently through his hair again, one last time. This time it was slower, more lingering than usual, as if she wanted to savor it while it lasted. "I know I made you happy, love, but Hermione does something more than that. When you're with her, you don't *have* to be happy. You can be sad, or scared, or angry, or even irrational, and know that she'll never judge you or misunderstand you. She's the one person on earth that you trust enough to allow her to see every side of you, with nothing held back. There's just no getting around it. She completes you." Her smile grew somewhat wistful. "I should have seen it earlier," she admitted. "I should have known what it meant. I'm sorry that I didn't."
Lavender slid the engagement ring off of her finger and pressed it into Harry's hand. "Good luck, Harry." He squeezed her hand gently and gave her a grateful smile. "Now scurry along and pack!" she said, releasing him and shooing him away. "We're too busy to be sitting around like this. You have a girl to catch and I have a very complicated and elaborate wedding to cancel."
Harry, who stood at the beginning of her sentence, froze at these words. "Oh Merlin, the wedding plans. I can't leave you to deal with that on your own!"
"You can and you will," Lavender replied firmly. "Now if you don't start heading up those stairs in the next five seconds, be prepared for me to start practicing the stinging hex you taught me fifth year on your backside!"
"Will you be alright?" Harry asked gently.
Lavender smiled in reply. "Of course I'll be alright. I'm brave, remember? I'm a Gryffindor."
"That you are, love," Harry murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead before bolting up the stairs.
Lavender watched him go and then, when she was sure she was alone, pressed a gentle kiss onto her newly bare left hand ring finger. "I'll be fine," she whispered to herself with a rueful smile. Smoothing down her hair, she stood and walked over to a mirror in the corner to check her eyes for signs of tears.
"Lovely as always, dear," the motherly voice of the mirror said. Lavender flashed it a winning smile before stepping away and turning to the exit. First stop was the Owlery; she had quite a few posts she needed to send.
"Yes," she said to herself with a firm nod, "I'll be fine."